The Hunger Games: Staying True. (Completed)

Chapter Twenty-Nine; The Defiance of Wolves. [Edited]

My legs almost go out from under me at the sight of her. Thanks to some kind of miracle, I manage to grab onto the frame of the bathroom door, and use the solid wood beneath my palm to steady myself.

Though my chest is still heaving and my whole body shaking.

I'm terrified of her, I realise. My body has recognised the threat in the room, and after everything that has happened, I can't even stare at her defiantly. This is truly what it is to be broken, I decide.

She's sat there in all her finery. Her pants suit is pristine, her blazer buttoned sharply. It fits her to perfection. It's an overcast grey, looking as fine as clouds. Her square heeled boots match perfectly. Her hair frames her face, her strange coloured eyes bright, intelligent, heavy as they rest on me. Sweep my frame.

She looks like the epitome of strength, of leadership. Even seated on her little plastic chair, she looks indestructible. Compared to her, I'm small, weak, huddled in clothes too big. Hunched over like some sort of whipped dog, flinching back from its cruel master.

I guess that's my exact situation.

It takes a while for me to register the other faces. Two of them are guards, big and broad shouldered in their signature grey. I don't miss the guns holstered against their ribs. Two to each man.

Birch is stood off to the side, arms crossed and glaring at the floor. He doesn't want to be a part of this, but from the way one of the guards is eyeing him, he doesn't have much of a choice.

The most surprising guests are Marie and Thatcher. Thatcher has a hand around Marie's arm, like he's struggling to hold her in place. His ginger hair and beard are the only spots of colour in the room. He's shooting daggers at Coin - his mother, I remember suddenly. I wonder what hurts him more, the fact that his tongue was cut out, or the fact that she ordered it.

Marie has her hands grasped in front of her, fingers locked together so tight they've faded to bone white. She's staring at me like I might disappear if she looks away. Her dark eyes are blown wide with fear.

"Emerald Casteel." Coin purrs, cocking one leg over the other, hooking pale hands over her high knee. "You look like a corpse."

"Yeah well, I recently took a trip into hell." I try to spit it at her, but my voice wobbles more than I want it to. "You might have noticed."

"I did." She smiles softly, indulgently. "And I noticed too that you've managed to crawl your way out."

"To the disappointment of a few, I imagine."

"Naturally." She tilts her head, surveying me with curiosity. "How have you done it, Casteel? How did you get out?"

"You watched how I did it." I frown, "Coal-"

"Not the arena!" She hisses, leaning forward suddenly, teeth bared. "That hardly matters now. How did you get out of Snow's cells? How did you manage to survive all those months under that machine? I know you bare the scars and I've seen the reports, the recordings, but it doesn't say anything about how you managed to survive."

I'm at a loss for words. This is what she cares about? After everything? After all I've done and said? After all the defiance in the arena, she's asking me about being tortured by a dead man?

"Why do you care?"

"Care?" She barks a laugh, "I don't care, Casteel, not about you. Not about your ruined body, or your tattered mind. I don't care that you've suffered, that I've contributed to that suffering. What I care about is the fact that we were subjected to the same machine, the same pain, and yet, though I am so much smarter, stronger, more powerful than you, you managed to hold out longer than I did."